Ceramic block filters offer several advantages over lumped component filters. The blocks are relatively easy to manufacture, rugged, and relatively compact. In the basic ceramic block filter design, the resonators are formed by typically cylindrical passages, called holes, extending through the block from the long narrow side to the opposite long narrow side. The block is substantially plated with a conductive material (i.e. metallized) on all but one of its six (outer) sides and on the side walls of the resonator holes.
One of the two opposing sides containing through-hole openings is not fully metallized, but instead bears a metallization pattern designed to couple input and output signals through the series of resonators. This patterned side is conventionally labeled the top of the block. In some designs, the pattern may extend to sides of the block, where input/output electrodes are formed.
The reactive coupling between adjacent resonators is affected, at least to some extent, by the physical dimensions of each resonator, by the orientation of each resonator with respect to the other resonators, and by aspects of ceramic composition. Interactions of the electromagnetic fields within and around the block are complex and difficult to predict.
These filters may also be equipped with an external metallic shield attached to and positioned across the open-circuited end of the block in order to cancel parasitic coupling between non-adjacent resonators and other nearby radio-frequency (RF) application components.
Although such RF signal filters have received widespread commercial acceptance since the 1980s, efforts at improvement on this basic design continued.
In the interest of allowing wireless communication providers to provide additional service, governments worldwide have allocated new higher RF frequencies for commercial use. To better exploit these newly allocated frequencies, standard setting organizations have adopted bandwidth specifications with compressed transmit and receive bands as well as individual channels. These trends are pushing the limits of filter technology to provide sufficient frequency selectivity and band isolation.
Coupled with the higher frequencies and crowded channels are the consumer market trends towards ever smaller wireless communication devices (e.g., handsets) and longer battery life. Combined, these trends place difficult constraints on the design of wireless components such as filters. Filter designers may not simply add more space-taking resonators or allow greater insertion loss in order to provide improved signal rejection.
The desired forms and circuit board layouts of portable communication devices vary widely with ever smaller dimensions being the general trend. A challenge in RF ceramic block filter design is providing filters with reduced dimensions. Many communication-device forms dictate not only the overall filter size but also individual filter dimensions. For example, the height of a ceramic filter as measured from the surface mounted side is conventionally limited. The allowable block length or maximum linear dimension is also a challenge for filters in certain RF devices, such as especially narrow wireless handsets.
The need is ongoing for reduced size ceramic block filters that meet demanding filtering performance specifications without significantly increasing manufacturing costs.